Extremal length estimates and product regions in Teichmüller space (Q1918377)

The Teichmüller space, \(T(S)\), of a surface \(S\) of finite conformal type, is a finite dimensional, contractible, complex manifold that is complete hyperbolic in the sense of S. Kobayashi; indeed, a theorem of H. Royden asserts that the Kobayashi metric on \(T(S)\) is exactly the same as the quasiconformal-distortion (= Teichmüller) metric of \(T(S)\). It is natural to be led to expect that \(T(S)\) with its Teichmüller metric is a negatively curved (Finsler) space. That expectation, however, has been shown to be false. H. Masur and M. Wolf had proved that \(T(S)\) is not negatively curved in the sense of M. Gromov and J. Cannon. In the present article, the author shows that there are regions in \(T(S)\) that are closely approximated (in metric) by product of lower dimensional metric spaces -- and that is in fact a feature exhibited by positively curved spaces. The method of proof is to estimate Teichmüller distances between certain points in \(T(S)\) by utilizing S. Kerckhoff's theorem which relates the Teichmüller metric to extremal lengths for curve families on a Riemann surface.